The purpose of these guidelines is to provide consistent, systematic standards for evaluating instructional materials proposed for use in California's public elementary schools to ensure compliance with their Education Code. Developers believe that the guidelines should be used when evaluating both student and teacher material and for separately evaluating each component of a series. The major portion of the guidelines provides specific criteria for evaluating how male and female roles and ethnic and cultural groups are treated in the curricula. Some criteria for evaluating how labor and religion are treated are also provided. Examples of criteria include that descriptions, depictions, and labels which tend to demean, stereotype, or be patronizing toward females, minority groups, and/or occupations must not appear; references and illustrations must refer to males and females approximately evenly in both number and importance and must refer to a fair proportion of diverse ethnic groups; sexually neutral language such as people, persons, they, and pioneers should generally be used; no religious belief or practice shall be held up to ridicule; and students must not be indoctrinated in any particular religious belief. The paper concludes with extracts from the Education Code regarding a variety of topics including portrayal of cultural and racial diversity and prohibited instructional materials. (Author/DB)